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Connecticut AG To Grill Amazon, Apple Over E-Book Price Fixing
suraj.sun tips news that Connecticut's Attorney General has demanded a meeting with Apple and Amazon to discuss anti-competitive pricing methods in the e-book market. From Ars:
"Richard Blumenthal says that he wants representatives from both on-line giants in his office ASAP to discuss what Blumenthal calls their 'most favored nation' arrangements with big book companies like Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. The crux of the MFN concept is that a given product maker must offer a given distributor the lowest price it's offering anyone. If a competing distributor gets a price break, they get it too. 'The net effect is fairly obvious,' Blumenthal warned in his letter to Amazon (PDF), 'in that MFNs will reduce the publisher's incentive to offer a discount to Amazon if it would have to offer the same discount to Apple, leading to the establishment of a price floor for e-books offered by the publisher.'"
It's one thing to say "This book will cost $14.99 from our store." It's quite another to say "All the books we sell will be $14.99, and if you let us sell your book you're not allowed to sell this book anywhere else for cheaper."
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Didn't Amazon just hand over its right to price many new releases to the publishers? I seem to remember Amazon wanting to charge $10 for a new (only in hardcover) release, but the publishers forcing them to increase the price or not carry the books. Of course, that doesn't say anything about cheaper books that are out in paperback...
Fucking e-books. Why does it cost more to buy an e-book than it does to buy a dead-tree paperback? wtf?
I absolutely adore my nook, but it's filled with public works and books that have been gifted to me...I refuse to pay $10 for a digital copy of a book.
Living With a Nerd
Aren't e-books selling at levels competitive with physical books?
Aren't they luxury items in the first place?
If the previous two points are true as I believe, it seems kind of silly that the best use of the Connecticut AG's time is making sure people aren't overpaying a few bucks for items they're obviously already comfortable purchasing at that price.
I would rather see a legal investigation into Amazon's and Apple's patent tactics and such. Their portfolios and legal strategies likely cause many more customers of many other companies to overpay many more total dollars for zero value.
But who the fuck am I?
This is just grandstanding by a politician running for office. Neither Amazon nor Apple are headquartered in Connecticut, which makes the appropriate action for this state AG to make a filing to the FTC.
Except, of course, filing with the FTC just doesn't sound as exciting to voters.
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This makes no sense to me.
If I want to sell my books to amazon for $5 while charging $6 to everyone else, why does it matter? Why is the Government's General Attorney interfering with these transaction that only involves two people (me and the amazon rep)? This looks to me like some guy who has too much time on his hands, or is possible looking for an issue to hang his reelection campaign upon.
Note that this is different from the price-fixing that CD companies were doing - forcing stores like Kmart and Walmart to raise prices from $9 to $12 minimum. That could be argued to be Damaging the consumer, and was found to be an illegal cartel (record companies acting as one unit).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
it seems kind of silly that the best use of the Connecticut AG's time is making sure people aren't overpaying a few bucks for items they're obviously already comfortable purchasing at that price.
By that logic, there's never been a damaging monopoly at all - after all, by definition, all the customers are comfortable paying the price charged or they wouldn't be customers, right?